Texas tractorman killed by bees

CNN) -- A Texas man died after a swarm of Africanized bees disturbed by his tractor attacked, stinging him more than 1,000 times Saturday.
The bees were living inside an old chicken coop that Larry Goodwin, 62, was pushing over to clear off his Moody, Texas, property, neighbor John Puckett told CNN affiliate KCEN-TV.
"He lifted the whole hive and disturbed them all and they just came swarming out of there and trapped him on his tractor," Puckett said.
His daughter and neighbors rushed to help, but they said there was nothing they could do to save Goodwin.
"When we got to him, he was purple, he had thousands and thousands of bee stings on his face and arms," Tanya Goodwin said.
Puckett said his wife and daughter were stung 100 times. "I came pretty close to losing my family," Puckett said.
Allen Miller, whose company Bees Be Gone removed the hive after the attack, said he's seen more Africanized bee hives in the past few weeks than he normally sees in a year.
"If anybody has any brush or anything on their lands, please clear it, because they don't want to go through this," Tanya Goodwin said. "Nobody needs to go through this."
Africanized honey bees, known colloquially as "killer bees," are believed to have entered Texas in 1990 and have since spread to at least 10 other states, from California to Florida.

Back in 1994 a large tornado hit in my area. As the twister passed near the shop, my diesel fuel tanks became airborn and disappeared. It wasn't until 6 years later that I discovered where one of them ended up. There was a vacant piece of land where a house had once stood until the night of the twister. Trees and vines overtook the place and that was where one tank ended up. Don't recall why I happened to walk across it, but just happened to spot it underneath a tangle of vines and brush.

Went back to my shop to get a tractor and trailer to haul it back on. As I was attempting to try and move it, all of a sudden a large swarm of bees came from inside the tank. Since it was covered with vines, I couldn't see a hole in one end. Took off running as fast as I could. I had to just leave the tractor running for almost an hour before taking a chance to drive it away.
**Rewind a couple months before, as I walked out of my shop, a swarm of bees was heading right in my direction. Knowing it might be Africanized bees, I ran in a 90 degree direction from where they were heading. It was this swarm of bees that ended up taking residence inside the fuel tank I later discovered. Both incidents were kind of scary.

Since then, I've had another encounter with them while exploring a creek.

Y'all be careful out there. Bumble bees can really put the hurt on you also. Trust me, I found this out the hard way while brushhogging a while back on an open station tractor. Ran over a nest and that's when the pain began soon after. Ouch!

I was mowing a field one afternoon listing to the radio and enjoying the comfort of my airconditioned cab and I couldn't help but notice all the wasps around the tractor. It seemed like more than the usual number of curious wasps that check out a tractor. It took two more times around the field to see the 12" paper wasp nest in the brambles that I had disturbed with the mower. There were two in that field and I realized just how lucky I was to be working in a cabbed tractor.... It was worth the extra money right there.